Topic: Mining in the cold (Read 4496 times)

My thought would be to find air filter material, cut it into squares the size of your intake fan, and put that filter material on the back of that intake fan.

A problem with an Antminer is that you would have to disassemble it to have a chance at cleaning dust from inside. And, with all those thin heatsinks, it wouldn't be easy. So, stopping dust from going into the miner would be a good preventive measure.

Highly unlikely that they like to run warm. That is why they have specs that allow them to run as low as 0°C, but want to be run at no more than 40°C. Computer processors and similar chips, such as CPU's, GPU's and Antminer's ASIC chips, run better when it's cooler. The fans run in proportion to the heat inside the miner. So, you will, at least, be paying less in electricity with the lower fan speeds. And, my thought is that power usage should be lower if the chips aren't having to work as hard in higher temperatures.

It would be interesting to see if miner users have charted power usage in relation to operating temperature.

The trick is to keep the Antminer within specs. And, 0°C is the floor for Operating Temperature. I am considering the installation of electrical outlets in my garage so I can run my L3+, and my upcoming S9, in the garage during the winter.

My garage's temperatures are not likely to fall below 0°C. And, I will have to find somewhere else for them when winter is over. But, you still have to be careful of moisture and dust. My miners would be near the far wall, away from the garage door.

I think most miners understand, but if you are new to running these machines, the area where you have your miners should be clean and free of dust, and not be in an area where dust could be coming in. You also need good air flow, which I think most miners understand.

Otherwise, reading Bitmain's specs is important. Bitmain very likely has good reasons for specifying the specs that they do.

Answer: View the Antminer S9's specs: "Operating Temperature: 0°C to 40°C"

https://shop.bitmain.com/antminer_s9_asic_bitcoin_miner.htm?flag=specifications

I admire your adventurousness. But, all Antminer owners really should carefully read the specs for their equipment. There are likely very specific reasons why Bitmain specifies these specs. So, operating in any temperature below freezing is likely, to very likely, have adverse or even damaging effects to your equipment.

Do you have any pictures of how you are connecting the miners into the cold air return? I am planning to do this (especially with the tax hike on natural gas in Alberta next year).

I was planning on taking some air from the cold air return through the miners and back into it. My biggest consern is fluff and dust as it would be pre-filter.  I will try any set up a filter before the miners.

So, how has it been doing? I live in a country where it beats Antarctica from time to time when it comes to who's got the colder temps. It's currently -26C (-15F) and I got a S9 inside a room but with all the windows and doors open. Miner is blowing towards the windows and doors tho.

Screeshot: https://cloud.hello.mn/s/qwOC0igR2RuEvx4

It's been a year since you've posted your original question, bet you have a lot to say

My S9 is a September batch, and I don't think they like to run warm. Or they still like to run warm?

I envy you. It's 0*C outside and it's getting dark at 3 p.m. If I had sun in here all year long you wouldn't find a space on my roof not covered with solar panels. Want to switch?

Covering the fans with mesh should help. At least you'll be dusting the covers not the whole room.

same here my only issue is the dust my revisible exhuadt fans bring in
so anoying having to dust every day

you are lucky live in a place that had winter season, I live in a tropical climate, the temperature each day about 33 degrees Celsius, to makes the room cool it takes cost about 5 cents per kwh or 40% of the maintenance cost.

My farm has been enjoying -25c temperatures the last few days. I love how everything is more efficient with cold temps, I'm saving thousands of watts vs summer mining.

Guess I should edit my answer...
Lol
You CAN.. But not feasible. The highest end computers out there right now are not practical for mining BTC. so gaming systems are a hard no.
Not that you can't, just that you shoudln't

 If you can find a way to get LINUX on them, you could - but their performance is going to be a joke.

 For ALL practical purposes, they have an AMD A10 APU in them as their only processing - only difference is that the PS4 series uses GDDR 5 instead of DDR3 which makes it a little faster, but you're still looking at a GPU with very similar stats to the ancient AMD HD 7750 or the rebadge of the HD 7750 to the R7 250.


 In other words, VERY LOW hashrate for a VERY HIGH power consumption = LOSE MONEY.


 The CPU side isn't even worth thinking about for Bitcoin mining.

NO

I'm still in the operating range, ambient is 2-3degrees C..
But outside temp. is freezing cold today.

You're running them waaay out of the 0-40c range
http://imgur.com/a/hF1sy

Sadly...still not quiet  

-27 C. Outside, around 1-2 C. in my shed. Now the damn beast is quiet 

Cold boot is a no go for sure. Pre-heat it in-house to warm up then trow it in the shed.

My S9 like to be cooled. It's a batch 10 / 11.8TH
Ambient temp outside, -13C last night , is 10 Degrees C in my shed. Very low hardware error and run like a champ at 13.1TH/s 

Microchips aren't designed to withstand temperatures of -40 if you look at the bitmain specifications their stable operating temperature is   0°C to 40°C

In all honesty if they hit -40 they will probably never turn back on...chances are if they hit -5 they might never turn back on either.

The mining company will tell you what temperatures the chip is stable at...going above or below that rating can cause permanent and potentially fatal damage.

Thanks for this information jstew, very interesting. I will keep a hairdryer handy

this^^^

were i live it can get to 20* below  , i feed my miners filtered air from outside in the winter , if u need to power off and power the miner back on in that kind of temp it usually wont restart.

last winter i had to keep a hair dryer in my datacenter for restarting miners when it got cold out , oddly enough the  only ones i had issues with were the miners that used the beagle bone controllers , all the s3;s would start right up no matter how cold , for this winter i have restricted the fresh air intakes a bit to keep the miners warmer , and all is good , though our coldest night so far was only 2*


as mentioned s7 and s9 miners do not like to run very cold, so if u have those u may have issues,, spondoolies gear absolutely loved the cold , infact im still runing a bunch of sp20 and sp31's, older miners like the s1/s3/s4/s5 walso ran just fine in the very cold temps , with the exception of restart issues on the s4 and s5's , warming up the controllers with a hair dryer on low solved that issues though if they wouldnt boot up on there own


i dont expect any issues this year though with the restricted air intakes  and the fact i have alot more gear now and it keeps the building decently warm

Hey just a quick update, nothing new for a lot of longtime locals here...

But I currently have the miner in my garage, there's been a cold snap and I found my garage temperature dipped down to -5 deg C. Sometime later my S9 dropped in hashrate, from about 14 th to 10 th. I fixed the temperature situation and cycled the power and it hashing perfectly once again.

So, one thing I learned for sure is sub 0 temperature will result in a drop in hash rate. I'm not sure what would of happened if I left it at that ambient temperature but I'm not willing to take the risk to find out.

Cheers